Turtle Time!

Ask Kellie Pendoley (Class of 1976) about the impacts of her life’s work as an environmental scientist and biologist, and she’ll likely smile and shrug, then chalk it down to a series of fortunate events.

To offer a brief glimpse of her career: Kellie is the founder and lead scientist of Pendoley Environmental; she is currently advising Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah University of Science and Technology on light pollution issues related to marine wildlife; in 2020, the Australian government tasked her to help write its national guidelines for wildlife protection from lighting impacts (“it’s satisfying to see this work making a difference”); she has served on the board of several large environmental organizations, including Perth Zoo, the International Sea Turtle Society, and Western Australia’s Marine Parks and Reserves Authority (MPRA); and much, much more.

“It wasn’t a plan, so I stumbled into it, basically. Different doors opened up, and I just went through them,” Kellie says easily. “Someone once said to me, ‘Follow what you’re best at’. So, I thought: I will.”

As it turns out, Kellie would be very good — remarkably good — at a lot of things, including anything and everything to do with ecology, environmental science, and oceanography. But what she was truly best at, her true talent and gift, lay in using her knowledge and skills to spark real change.

Kellie spent her childhood on Australia’s Norfolk Island, where jagged cliffs, lush greenery, and the waters of the Pacific Ocean surrounded her every day. She didn’t know it at the time, but the experience left an indelible mark that would shape her view and relationships with the natural environment.

"Growing up on an island, you’re more in touch with everything around you. I think [my career choice] was just a practical thing,” she says.

When she and her family moved from Norfolk Island to mainland Australia and then again to Indonesia as a high schooler in 1975, she was launched into the life of a third-culture kid. The change was jarring yet “interesting”, and the cultural differences she was already feeling became even more pronounced when she found herself surrounded by new friends from around the globe at Jakarta Embassy School (JES).

“Our crowd was very diverse, from all over the place — and that was such a positive thing.”
Her journey as a global nomad continued, taking her to Canada and then England and the United States for university. It was at the Florida Institute of Technology, earning a bachelor’s degree in environmental science, where the vision of her purpose began to sharpen: “I wanted to make environmental protection my career.”

In Kellie’s view, industry polluters were reluctant or doing little to change their practices, and environmental activists were making limited headway. 

"I thought, ‘If the industry isn't doing the right thing, you can. You can make change from the inside; you don't have to fight them head-on.’ I wanted to make changes from within — and I did.”

That philosophy became the guiding principle of her entire career. 

"Work with them, talk to them, nudge them the right way," she explains. "You might never win any big battles; it takes decades sometimes to effect that change. I played the long game — that I was gonna make the changes that I could, but I knew it was never gonna happen overnight. And I knew I was never going to get the credit for it."

Over the next 35-plus years, she would stay true to her word, but instead of responding to doors that opened up to her, she would be unlocking them herself and holding them wide open for others who are passionate about environmental protection.

While working for an oil and gas company in Australia, for example, Kellie saw gaps in the industry's understanding of sea turtles and realized more research was needed. She had tried getting PhD students to tackle the problem, but they never quite took it on. 

"So I figured, I'll go do it myself," she says. "And because I knew all the industry people, I got logistical support — accommodation, helicopters, everything I needed.” 

That drive led to the first PhD on sea turtle biology in Western Australia, as well as a government requirement for oil and gas companies to monitor the sea turtle population in their areas of operation — using the same design Kellie created, which became “the legal standard”.

No one else had the knowledge and expertise to carry out such large-scale work, which meant Kellie had to be deeply involved in the flood of requests coming in. And so, Pendoley Environmental was born. 

The consultancy would go on to set standard after standard, especially in monitoring sea turtles and assessing the risks they face from artificial light. And if that required developing new technology, so be it.

“I discovered that there was no equipment to measure ecological light pollution anywhere in the world. I had to figure out how to measure artificial light pollution,” Kellie recalls. “So, I did — we did.”

After more than three decades of leading industry-changing innovations, driving meaningful changes, and setting the standards for measuring and tackling pollution, Kellie is now semi-retired — but that hasn’t slowed her down. She is still consulting for major projects focused on light-pollutant issues, sharing her knowledge and training the next generation of eco-change-makers. Still, despite having stayed at the forefront of a field that has been gaining traction in the past few years, thanks partly to her consistent involvement, Kellie prefers to stay in the background. 

“Just stay low-key; let people know what it is you do and how well you do it.”

And in doing so, Kellie is leaving a legacy that speaks louder and brighter than any glaring spotlight, paving the way for others to do what they do best: spark meaningful change.